Saturday, June 6, 2015

The Grim Game screening in Austin, July 19

TCM's restoration of Houdini's The Grim Game will screen at the historic Stateside at the Paramount theater in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, July 19, at 7pm. This screening will be unique in that composer/pianist Reuel Meditz will accompany the film with his own original score.

The Grim Game was originally released by Paramount Pictures, so a screening in a historic Paramount theater seems fitting. The Stateside was built in 1935 and sits adjacent to the Paramount Theater where Houdini appeared in 1916. That theater recently held an event in which a Houdini hologram addressed the audience.

5 comments:

Forgive me for posting this observation here but I wanted to share this with everyone.

Regarding Houdinis casket and burial I noticed several things when looking at photos of Rudolph Valintinos funeral.

Both were buried in similar looking bronze caskets.

Both caskets were carried into and from venues with their top completely covered in flowers.

Looks like Valintino was also buried in a glass lined inner casket. I found one photo where you can see reflections from the glass. However his outer bronze casket and I am sure Houdinis had a solid non transparent lid.

So to me it's quite clear how this all works. A hermetically sealed glass covered inner casket (lining) inside of a large bronze coffin with a solid non transparent lid.

Yes I have read that fascinating information. There were doubts as to whether Houdinis bronze casket was glass topped or not however. Based on what I saw with the many photos of Valentino in his casket it appears to me to be a very similar situation. I thought that the flowers that covered the casket when it was being carried were to cover the fact that the casket was glass topped. However I see the same treatment of Valentinos casket which was NOT glass topped so this must have just been a tradition of that time. So at least in my mind everything is clear.....Houdini is buried in a bronze casket that has a traditional solid non transparent top with an inner coffin liner which does indeed have a glass top.

The thing that surprised me is they decided to change the music. Wonder what their thinking was on this.Dorothy Dietrich and Dick BrookzThe Houdini MuseumThe Only Building in the World Dedicated to Houdini

That is an interesting decision. But it's fun to have live music, and this might be the only way to do it. It might be a regular feature of this theater, not unlike how the Silent Movie Theater here in LA used to have live piano accompaniment. And they also came up with their own compositions.